Summer’s anime season is at its end, which means a few things. It means Winnipeg now has to brace for snow. It means that game releases are about to start hitting fast and furious. But most importantly, it means it’s time to start reviewing anime!

New Game is a slice of life anime about a young woman who decides to apply for a character design job at the company who made one of her favourite games. We start the show with Suzukaze Aoba showing up for her first day at work and having to come to terms with the odd-ball personalities of Eagle Jump Software’s eccentric design team.

As a result of tectonic shifting, most of Japan sunk into the ocean. Over the century since then, cities along the coast and even on floating platforms have begun to emerge. As Japan became more and more oceanic, an all-female group of – effectively – coastguards was established known as the Blue Mermaids. The Blue Mermaids protect Japan’s watery territory, and as a result of their prosperity, most young women aspire to one day be a member of their elite ranks.

Included in such are our protagonist Akeno Misaki and her dearest friend Moeka China. They enroll in Yokosuka Girls’ Marine High School to join the Blue Mermaids. To their surprise, Akeno and Moeka are both made captains of their own respective vessels in the training fleet. What starts off as a routine marine training trip for the school fleet quickly goes awry as the Harekaze, Akeno’s ship, is late getting to the rendezvous point and suddenly her teacher’s ship fires upon her…

Tennomifune Academy, an elite and exclusive school that (mostly) only accepts the best athletes and the most adept academics. Our cast are characters who are not particularly exceptional at either, so they’re all a little surprised to be accepted into its esteemed ranks. Upon arriving at school, they’re placed in class 7 and advised that classes 1-3 will focus on scholastics, while 4-6 focus predominately on athletic accomplishment.

So what does class 7 focus on? Happiness.

You see, all of the members of class 7 have some form of notable misfortune, and Tennomifune Academy’s class 7 focuses on helping them overcome that so they can attain happiness. Anne-Happy follows 5 characters in Tennomifune’s ‘Happiness Class’ as they seek to come to terms with their misfortune.

Kiznaiver is the result of a pairing between Crunchyroll and Trigger. If you don’t recall who Trigger are, they’re the deranged minds that brought to us the glories of Kill la Kill. And they even brought the creepy twin-tailed girl back, but made her less evil… well, maybe. Given that, there are two things we can be sure of: Kiznaiver will be crazy, and its art style will be very unique.

“To think that someone would still call me eccentric!”

Kiznaiver is about a group of High School students who are – against their will – bound together and forced to endure each other’s pain, among other strong sensations. They find out that this has, apparently, been orchestrated by one of their classmates, Sonozaki Noriko. Noriko claims that the bond that has been forced upon them is an experiment to help bring about world peace by fostering connections through shared pain and suffering. A lofty goal, a strange method, and a weird premise: how much of any of these can we trust?

Have you ever wanted to just run away from life, abandon the trials of your day to day existence and start over in a place where your past can’t follow you? Ever been so fed up with yourself that you just want to create a new you in a new place? Join the First Life Do-Over Tour and come join the inhabitants of Nanaki Village to get your chance to begin anew!

In The Lost Village, we follow a cast of misfits from all walks of life who all seek escape, who wish to venture to a mysterious hidden village whose existence has never even been confirmed… a place that promises the opportunity to get a fresh start and freedom from the burdens of our society.